


The K-Fall (Kansas, the Kawatche, and the Kents)

by twriting



Series: Learning To Fly [1]
Category: Superboy (Comics), Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Bronze Age, Female Clark Kent, Silver Age, Smallville - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-01-04 20:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twriting/pseuds/twriting
Summary: The stars have fallen to Earth. With them is a child in a broken rocketship.





	1. Kansas

The stars have fallen to Earth. With them is a child in a broken rocketship that begs for help.

"Oh no," one of them says. "Oh no," the other replies.

"It's a lifeboat," Jonathan says.

"Help me get that poor kid out of there," Martha says.

The straps holding the baby seat in place are strange. They feel like slices of warm jello. Martha fumbles and pulls at them and they fall away without any sign of being attached in the first place. Martha grabs the baby seat's handles pulls the child towards herself. She brushes at the strange silver disk on the child's forehead, under the fringe of fine black hair. The disk falls away easily, into the ship. "What was that thing?"

Jonathan helps Martha pull the child and seat out of the ship. They both grunt at the weight. "Is it the kid or this seat?" Jonathan asks.

"No idea. Let's get them into the truck and out of the seat." Gasping, Martha hauls the kid over to the passenger's side door. The child is dressed in a blue and gold tunic with little red socks. Martha thinks it's a girl. A few raindrops have started to hit the windshield. She shoves the sleeping child into the truck and sees that Jonathan is still staring at the rocketship.

"I think it's broken," he says. "It's listing. And it sounded weird earlier."

"What was it supposed to sound like?"

"Well." Jonathan walks fast over to the truck. "Well, it sounded like it was broken. Get in. I'm going to pull the truck up."

Martha shoves the seat to the middle and gets in. The child starts to fuss a bit when Martha closes the door. "What are you doing?"

"Pulling up past it. As long as it's floating I'm going to see if I can get that thing into the back."

The girl is definitely starting to wake up. Martha brushes curls of beautiful black hair away from her face and makes quiet noises. Fat drops of Summer rain start to tap out a rhythm as Martha hums. As Jonathan pulls the truck forward Martha starts working on the straps holding the girl in her seat. These ones have strangely ordinary buttons, but the buttons are flexible and soft. Martha pulls her free and holds her close. "She's heavy. It's not just the seat."

Jonathan opens the door and starts to get out. Martha interrupts him. "Where are we going to say we found her?"

"About a quarter-mile further up the road than we are. Due north of Elk Falls."

* * *

* * *

Sergeant Nancy Adams makes a slow note of that in her book. "Due - north - Elk - Falls." It's a show, to give her time to consider distances and speeds. Jonathan had left his phone at home (Adams will check that with the Richters, as well as confirming the time that the Kents left the Richter house after visiting), and Martha's phone was down to 1% (Martha is known to live dangerously when it comes to charging her phone), so they didn't call the sheriff's office until they got home.

The call came in at just after 9:45, which is a bit late for a drive from the Richters back to the ranch. But it's about right if you allow time for the befuddled couple to wander around aimlessly in the road or sit at home staring, wondering how the hell a baby ended up alone in the middle of Nowhere, Elk County.

Sergeant Adams has heard the recording of the 911 call. Martha's voice, in the careful and slightly confused tone of a person who isn't sure that 911 is the right place but doesn't know who else to call. "Well it might be an emergency, we found a baby..."

"So you saw her at the side of the road -"

"Middle. Sorry, Sergeant Adams." Jonathan shakes his head. "Right in the middle of the road, sleeping. It's a miracle I didn't hit her."

Martha and the baby are in the kitchen, talking to the one deputy the department can spare right now. An actual meteor shower hit the Kawatche Nation Reservation last night (Martha and Jonathan saw that right before they saw the baby, and isn't that a hell of a thing, Sergeant Adams?) and the sheriff's department is stretched a bit thin keeping treasure hunters off Kawatche land. Still, even stretched thin the department can't overlook a baby found in the middle of a road. A stray baby raises a lot of bad possibilities, and Nancy is not looking forward to a long day of searching ditches and back roads for evidence of those bad things.

Especially not after that hot day yesterday, and rain last night and today. Soggy, bloated corpses are not high on the list of Nancy Adams's favourite things.

Nancy goes over her notes with Jonathan, jumping back and forth between points, getting a couple of details out of place and seeing how he corrects her. She doesn't think the couple killed someone or kidnapped this kid. People do all sorts of things that could be called out of character or just plain stupid, and killing someone for their kid is just one of those things that happens. But Jonathan and Martha are both deeply practical people and neither of them likes drama in their life. It's possible they are criminals, and Nancy will do her job and look into that possibility, but it's a lot more likely that someone dumped the kid or that she ran away from some smugglers.

"You tried her on Spanish?"

"Yeah," Jonathan says. "I don't know much kid-talk, but I asked her name, who her parents are, if she was hungry, stuff like that. She didn't seem to know a word of it."

Nancy keeps making notes. "Family services will check her again. I've heard there are some rural places in Mexico where they don't start learning Spanish until school. And she might not even be Mexican."

"We'll try - I don't even know what. I guess we'll look up some languages, see what we can learn there."

Sergeant Adams is ready to wrap this up, and she's timed it about right for Martha and Deputy Kendall. Kendall comes in to the living room first, followed by Martha carrying the girl. Nancy and Kendall brought an emergency childcare kit along, and the kid is now dressed in coveralls about two sizes too big for her. According to Martha she was naked when they found her. Her face is pressed tight against Martha's shoulder, and what Nancy can see of her cheek is sticky. The kid looks ready for a nap.

"She likes bland food," Martha says. "She won't touch anything with a hint of pepper, paprika, cayenne, you name it. Loves bananas and french fries, so far." Martha makes a face. "And she's heavy. This kid is solid muscle."

Kendall and Nancy trade glances. Kendall shrugs. "Farm kid, maybe. A lot of those poor farms in Mexico or Central America, even a little kid will be doing some work."

"Or she's a city kid with a gym membership," Nancy says. Martha and Jonathan chuckle a bit. The kid looks up from Martha's shoulder and peers suspiciously at Nancy and Kendall. While the mood has changed Sergeant Adams takes the time to ask if there's anything else they'd like to add. There isn't, but Martha wants to know when family services will be by.

"Well, they're not completely happy with us leaving the kid here. But there's no one in the sheriff's offices to keep an eye on you so you might as well sit alone at home as sit alone there. They said they'd be by before noon, so you've got a few hours yet."

"We're approved for emergency foster placements," Martha says. "That came through last week. We could look after her. But we need to go shopping. And if, if they're going to take her away, I'd rather know sooner than later."

Privately, Nancy Adams is going to put in a good word with the case worker for these two. Subject to withdrawal, depending on what comes out of the investigation.

"Have you decided on a name yet?"

Martha and Jonathan trade looks. "It's too soon," Jonathan says. He meets Nancy's eyes for a few seconds, then looks away and half smiles. "We always thought we'd name a girl after my mother, use her maiden name."

Nancy thinks Joanne Cantrell is a good name and is just about to say so. With a beaming smile Martha says "Cantrell Joanne. We like the sound of it."

"That's good," Nancy says.

"Unique," Kendall says.

Sergeant Adams and Deputy Kendall make sure that Martha and Jonathan have their contact info, promise to keep the Kents as up-to-date as they can, and say their goodbyes. They're in the car and a third of the way up the driveway before Kendall says it.

"They flipped it around? What was wrong with Joanne Cantrell?"

"At least it's not another Kaitlyn."

"Madison."

"Emma. It's not such a bad name, once you get used to it." Nancy shook her head. "Well. Provided they're not responsible for whatever happened to her parents - "

"Those two? Not likely."

"_Provided_, __I think they'll be good parents__."__

* * *

* * *

Christy Daniels has what passes for the initial police report, which boils down to _it's raining and we ain't found shit_. The sheriff's office is stretched thin at the best of times, state police have been called in to help keep over-eager rockhounds off Kawatche land, and some meth-addled halfwit tried to rob the Greenwood gas station and shot off two of his own fingers. There aren't many people to spare for a child abandonment case, which is why Christy drove up the Kent driveway alone instead of with appropriate law enforcement support.

Not that she's worried. She's the one who approved the Kents as foster parents. Now she and Martha are outside in the Summer rain, standing in the driveway in front of the house and listening to the kid howl.

"She has good lungs," Christy says. She's very glad she remembered to bring her raincoat today, given what a racket the kid is making. Christy and Martha have already arranged to take the girl in for a medical, but... "She certainly seems healthy."

"Poor Jonathan," Martha says. Jonathan is inside with the girl, wearing the sort of ear protectors normally used around heavy equipment. "At least Ed can cover his work today."

Christy has already investigated the ranch and its regular employees. Ed is Eduardo Garcia, the lead ranch hand. Married to a woman from the Kawatche reservation, twins on the way, American citizen, had a few wild years as a teen in Keystone City but no legal problems as an adult. Volunteers with a local group that teaches outdooring to high school kids.

"She's strong, too." Martha brushes stray hair back under the hood of her rain poncho. Both Martha and Jonathan have already mentioned how strong the girl is. "And she can move fast. We're going to keep her indoors for the next few days."

Christy thinks she catches another cry of _mala, mala_, __but the girl is quieting down. Healthy kids can scream for a surprisingly long time, but sooner or later they get tired of it. "I wish I knew what language that is."

"When we have more time we're going to check online. Jonathan suggested asking some language forums. And Ed's going to ask his wife. We thought her name might be Kala, but then she started in at payla and krep-to. Now we've got no clue."

_Payla, layla, lushva, krepto, mala, mawchud_... __Christy has a list of words she doesn't recognize, and honestly not a lot of time to check them out. It's not like the Kents and this child are her only client family in the area. And personally, Christy agrees with Adams and Kendall that the Kents are unlikely to be involved in whatever happened with the girl's parents, so..__.__

"For the time being, I'm going to approve you as her emergency foster placement - "

The girl is quieter now but still crying loud enough to be heard outside. When Christy says approve Martha's face lights up in open joy. Martha quickly damps down the light, but it's still there in her eyes. The kid was rattling windows earlier and Martha Kent is delighted.

"There's still the investigation," Martha says. "I don't want to lose her, but we want to know anything you can find about her family."

There aren't many scenarios where the absent parents of a kid found wandering in the middle of a road get that kid back. "I think I'm happy with her where she is now," Christy tells Martha. "If you can't figure out her name, what are you planning to call her?"

"Well, like we discussed before for a girl. But we'll see."

Christy nods. She's heard worse names than Cantrell Joanne, and if the kid doesn't like it there's always CJ or Jo.

Welcome to Kansas, Cantrell Kent.


	2. Clark and Kent

"Martha? Wonderful to hear from you. How are you and Jon?"

Martha and Jonathan Kent have been married for over fifteen years. Somehow her brother still thinks he's being friendly when he calls her husband 'Jon'.

"Jonathan and I are fine, Mark. How's Kathleen?" Mark had the conventional affair for a man of his background. His former twenty-something girlfriend is now his thirty-something second wife.

"She's doing great. Signed up with a volunteer program to mentor girls who are thinking about a career in business, and she loves it."

Martha listens to Mark's voice, not just his words. He really does seem to love Kathy. Maybe he'll decide, in that unthinking gut-impulse way of his, that the conventional thing to do here is to smarten up and not have another affair.

"I love hearing from you Martha, but you don't normally call around this time of day."

Or much at all, really. Mark has his head up his ass but he also has a functioning brain. He must be wondering why his not-quite estranged sister is calling out of the blue.

"Do you remember in my last email, when I said that Jonathan and I had applied to become foster parents?"

"That was about five weeks ago," Mark's voice is a bit tight. Controlled disapproval. His little sister is making another unconventional choice. Getting a degree in theology, running off to marry some country trash who was living out of a van when she met him, deciding to foster someone else's child... "Have you been approved yet?"

"Twelve days ago. The thing is, we already have a girl placed with us. About five, no six days ago. We've been so busy this is the first chance I've had to contact you."

"Do you know anything about this child's background?"

"Not a thing. Found her in the middle of a dirt road."

Martha enjoys the slight choking noise her brother makes as he struggles not to gasp in horror.

"We think she's about three years old. She might be Latina or Hispanic," Martha continues. "She's got the most amazing black curls you've ever seen. Her hair is so soft. But her eyes are just the brightest blue."

Her eyes are the azure of a cloudless sky at noon. Martha has seen coloured contacts that shade, but never anyone with eyes like that.

"She's got a few health problems," and it sounds like Mark is having problems of his own when he hears that. "She's had a couple of what looks like asthma attacks, and her eyes are very sensitive to bright light. Jonathan made some fasteners to hold sunglasses on her. It's just the cutest thing. I'll send you pictures."

"Martha that's - Have you - Are you sure?"

"About the asthma? Well, it could be some other lung problem. But otherwise she's very healthy." She remembers Cantrell-Kala scaling halfway up the house and adds "Lots of energy."

"Martha," Mark tries his stern grownup voice on his little sister. It hasn't worked once in her forty-one years, but that never stops him from trying. "Having a child of your own is a huge responsibility. Taking in some stranger's child - "

"She's our child. No one else's. We're going to adopt her."

"Be reasonable. You don't know anything about this girl."

"Her name is Cantrell Joanne. We named her after Jonathan's mother."

"Martha, you need to - "

"She's three-foot-four tall, forty pounds, and strong as a horse."

"Please listen to - "

"She's smart as a whip and learning more English every day."

"_Learning_ English?!"__

_ __ _

_ __ _

"And I can go on like this for hours. You want to know her favourite foods, Mark? I know lots about my daughter, and I'm going to keep learning more."

"What if her real parents come back?"

"Her birth parents aren't in the picture anymore. Jonathan and I are her parents now."

A theatrically heavy sigh comes through the phone. "You can be so stubborn sometimes."

"That is true."

"Well I wish you'd be more reasonable, but I suppose there's not much chance of me changing your mind here."

"Also true."

Another sigh, quieter and without drama. "Well. Thank you for calling, Martha. I know we don't talk much lately, but I appreciate you letting me know."

"I figure my family does have a right to know some things." Not everything though. Like the way Cantrell cries when the evening sky turns red.

"Thank you. And Martha, we might not see eye-to-eye on this, but I do wish you and Jon well. I hope this turns out for the best for all involved."

"It will. Jonathan and I will see to that. And thank you, Mark."

"Well."

"Well, I should get going. Give our love to Kathy. And I'll send you some pictures."

Just not the ones of her carrying that fence post.


	3. Chapter 3

About a mile south of the Kent ranch house and just over three hundred yards east of Little Hitchens Creek, there's a seasonal stream that feeds into the creek. The ground in the area is mostly stable but things change a bit every year. This year there's a hole, wide open with low sides, and a little bit of ground water left over from the rains flows out over the bottom of the pit and makes the hole look like a pool of clear water. Around the hole are a number of confused and concerned cattle, and in the hole is a heifer in up to her elbows in mud.

Unfortunately, the cow is not alone.

"What's 'ground pressure'?" Asks Cantrell Kent.  
  
"Ground pressure is what you and that cow have both just discovered."

It happens no matter what you do. You set up water and feed, keep clear paths for the animals, set the herd up so there's always a senior cow to show the calves the ropes, and ride out to make sure they're keeping in good habits, but no matter what some brainless half-ton lump of beef will manage to get itself into trouble. And sometimes your own smart but still ten years old and not all that smart daughter will think to imitate that half-ton lump.

The cow's not in too deep. Jonathan figures it will take him about an hour to get her out. Less if he has help. Jonathan hauls a length of chain out from the truck bed. The shovel is already over by the mudhole, where Cantrell left it once she figured she had a better idea than digging. "When you're putting a lot of force on the ground, the force distributed across the surface area against the ground is the pressure. That's why you want wide tires on a truck. Lot of weight, lot of engine power, so you want to spread that power over a big area. Keeps your ground pressure low."

"Oh," says Cantrell, from where she mired herself trying to rescue the cow. Cantrell managed to dig herself in deeper than the cow. She's a tall girl but even in boots her feet just aren't that broad, especially not compared to her horsepower. First she got herself stuck in a bit of mud. Then she started fighting the mud, and her narrow feet just dug in and churned up the earth better than a digging bar. Now she's up to her ribs in mud and looks as though she can't decide whether she's mad enough to punch the ground or embarrassed enough to cry.

In defence of his daughter, under the right circumstances Jonathan thinks she probably could lift a couple of American Milking Devons. These just weren't the right circumstances.

"Dad!"

"I got you, hon." Jonathan finishes fixing the chain to the truck's hitch. They'll need it for the cow later. He walks over to the edge of the mud pit and drops the chain close to Cantrell. "Here you go. Pull yourself out, I'll start digging a slope."

Cantrell starts hauling at the chain. As he walks over to the low edge of the pit Jonathan hears the truck shift. She must be in there good. Jonathan jabs at the mud a few times with the shovel blade, seeing how deep the blade goes in and how fast the cuts fill. When he's satisfied that he won't be digging himself into trouble Jonathan plants his feet and starts digging.

He takes it easy, going slow and minding his breathing. No rush. They're already got done most of what they need to do today and if they have to leave a few things for tomorrow, oh well. After a couple of minutes of steady work Cantrell interrupts his rhythm.

"Dad." There's a bit of alarm in his daughter's voice. Jonathan looks over but doesn't see anything you wouldn't expect from a kid yanking at a length of heavy chain.

"Yeah hon?"

"I'm, I'm stuck."

"Yeah, hon."

"No I mean. My boots."

"Figures."

There's a long few seconds of silence from Cantrell. "It's not just my boots. My pants are stuck."

"Pull 'em up."

"They're _ripping_."

"That's fine. Those ones are gettin' too short anyways." Her boots were a mite too small as well. Time to take her back in to town for some new clothes.

Another few seconds. And then in a voice like someone announcing an imminent death, "... My. Underwear. Are stuck."

Well all right, that must be embarrassing. "Pull 'em up?"

"They're _ripping_."

Trick to child rearing is not to make a fuss over things you can't help. You can laugh or cry about them later, as needed, once the kid is out of trouble and settled down. "You can cover up with your jacket."

"It's muddy."

"So are you."

"_Dad!_"

"Cantrell I know you're embarrassed, but I've been stuck in the mud myself a time or two." Never as deep as she is, but Jonathan doesn't have the leg strength to churn up mud the way his daughter does. "Sometimes you've just got to pull yourself out and leave behind what's going to stay behind."

He's never lost his underwear in the mud, but he's trying hard not to think about that. The last thing Cantrell needs right now is her dad busting a gut laughing.

Work helps. He's got to watch his breathing for that. Jonathan gets back to shovelling. "Let me know what help you need."

His daughter is silent while he works. He doesn't exactly count down, but right about when he figures she's ready...

"_Fine_." The truck shifts again, hard this time, and there's a long drawn out squelching noise exactly like a tween dragging herself out of a mudhole. Jonathan keeps his eyes on the mud and the cow and tries not to grin.

"Oh. My. God!" Jonathan hears mud spattering hard against the ground and figures Cantrell must be shaking it off. She makes a noise of disgust. "How'd it get in my hair? It's just, it's just everywhere! I'll never get it all off!"

"You'll be fine." The heifer isn't watching Jonathan dig. She's watching Cantrell try to shake the mud loose. Jonathan has been around cattle a long time. He knows what it looks like when one's laughing. "You're no better," he mutters at the animal. "Fact, you were in there first."

The heifer snorts.

Cantrell hops up to her dad, jacket tied around her waist as a skirt, trying to shake the mud off her legs. A quick glance tells Jonathan that it's easier to list the parts of her that aren't covered with mud; upper back and head, and that's about it.

"Your mom ain't going to let you in the house like that. I'll set up the kiddie pool in the garage and you can rinse off there."

Cantrell's tone is sullen. "Yeah, okay."

"So the lesson today?"

"If the darn cow wants to wallow, let 'er."

Jonathan snorts. "The lesson is, before you start a job make sure you know what the right thing to do is. Save yourself some time and effort."

"I could have pulled her out."

"If you hadn't gotten stuck, yeah. Thing is, even if you hadn't gotten stuck could you have pulled her out without hurting her?"

Cantrell watches her dad dig for a while. "Maybe. But I'd have to use that chain to distribute the force. Cow pressure."

He snorts again. "Yeah."

"I can finish the digging."

"That jacket going to stay up? Not that I care, mind you. I am the poor soul who had to clean you up after you ate a pound of bananas."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, you were four."

"Why would I eat a pound of bananas? I hate bananas."

"Yep. You've hated bananas ever since you were four and made yourself sick eating a pound of 'em."

**Author's Note:**

> The Kents are ranchers in this version, mostly to match the visuals of the Smallville series with the physical reality of Kansas. The only areas that look remotely like the Kent farm from Smallville are the Flint Hills, and that's ranching country.
> 
> In Smallville the Kawatche exist solely to be jerked around by super-settlers from the stars. That always sat poorly with me, so large chunks of this story are written to give them an independent existence.


End file.
